“My mom made them,” Ben hurried to explain before Aldo could tilt the box forward to show the chocolate shortbread cookies to the crowd. “Well, I helped. Sort of. They’re really good,” he added. “She normally only makes them for Christmas, but she insisted, and we added something.”
Aldo noticed the glint of metal nestled next to the cookies and hid it again before anyone but the three of us could see it.
A house key.
Aldo’s breathing went quick and shallow, his eyes more reflective than usual as he glanced once more over the vastness of the pile. He leaned closer to the box of cookies, hiding behind stray swaths of wrapping paper for the few seconds of absolute stillness necessary to detach and retreat to an empty, unchanging, indestructible, indifferent place.
I taught him that, I th
